what oil and coal companies fear

I do a lot of reading on energy, pollution, global warming, fossil fuel, crops and forests, new products and information in these fields.  

We all know that the fossil fuel industry has hired the same law firms and PR firms that the tobacco industry used 30 years ago, and they are getting much the same results.  The ability to stall legislation, confuse the public on facts, and drag out massive profits for their dirty products one more decade after another.

In my reading I found what oil, gas and coal fear most.  First they don't fear much, for reasons gleaned by those PR firms coupled with buying the GOP's partnership for the protection of the industry.   Second they have the infrastructure on their side, gas stations everywhere, and the suburbs ill equipped for walking, biking, bussing, and near by shopping and working.  And every time it looks like the alternative energies will take hold, they find a way to lower their own prices just in time to slow those new sources.  As now, wind and solar face opposition funded by old energy sources, at the same time drilling has brought a glut of oil and gas to market.  So what do they fear?

Batteries!  A break through in energy storage could cut them off in a decade or so.  Higher mpg cars and hybrids are beginning to reduce oil use, but more cars on the market, more plastics, more polyester pants, more asphalt roads, their market is not falling, in some nations it is still growing and will drive prices higher.  Better buildings and lighting, likewise reducing use but population growth may keep the overall flat or still drive demand up.  Wind and solar are hurting fossil fuel some, but so far growth is at a level that is not yet harmful to their profits.  But batteries, of all kinds and charged from all kinds of sources, that could fuck them over.  There are a lot of new technologies for batteries for cars and homes, solar and wind mill farms.  The estimated prices, life, and capacity of these are improving, if the rare earths and manufacturing capacity are available, in a few years we could see a massive jump forward on the market, not just in the lab.  This is what fossil fuel worries about, solar panels and wind mills charging batteries or powering fly-wheels that give off lots of power.  Worse yet, (for oil corps) if we have fleets of trucks, cars, and neighborhoods of batteries, we gain another energy source, one already in limited use in Denmark.  You get home and plug you car in for recharge, set your departure time on the charger.  The grid looks at your battery, 40% still in it, your departure time is 8 hours, during that time the grid alternately gives or takes energy from your battery but ensures it's charged on time.  All the cars out there become part of the local power grid, the savings in energy burned at the generator plant is enormous.  Double whammy for fossil fuel they lose and they lose again.  

* Avoid bad karma, recycle batteries for cars where you get your new one, and those little ones at Radio shack, some battery stores, some recycle centers, I toss ours in a bag in the garage till I have a few.